Best Halloween Costumes 2012: Sassy Big Bird Sales Skyrocket After Debate

By Tom Herrmann | October 12 2012 12:07 PM

Mitt Romney caused a stir with nostalgic Americans when the presidential hopeful said he would cut funding to PBS, the home of Sesame Street and the beloved character Big Bird. Following the debate, where Romney insisted that he liked the large, yellow Muppet, sales for the “Sassy Big Bird Adult Costume” for Halloween 2012 have gone up by 500 percent on Costume.com, reported ABC News.

Party City

If you wanted to celebrate your support for Big Bird and Sesame Street with a sexy costume this Halloween, you’re going to be out of luck. Sesame Street Workshop has advised Yandy.com to "cease and desist" selling sexy costumes based on Big Bird, Bert, and Ernie.

Sponsorship Link

The costume has also become a hot item for the 2012 Halloween season at other costume stores.

ABC reported that Costume World has seen great success with the costume. “We have four store locations, and all of them are selling out of the Big Bird costumes,” said Costume World CEO and founder Marilynn Wick.

“Turn heads on Sesame Street with this Sassy Big Bird Costume!” reads the costume description from Party City. “Sesame Street Big Bird Costume features a yellow character dress with floral corsage and pink waist tie, red and pink striped stirrup knee high stockings, and a Big Bird headband.”

ABC noted that before the presidential debate last wee,k where Romney told Americans how he felt about Big Bird, despite acknowledging that he would seek spending cuts at the network, which airs “Sesame Street,” costumes like “Sassy Cookie Monster” and “Sassy Elmo” were selling at the same rate as the Big Bird model.

Romney’s remarks about Big Bird have done more than just increase costume sales in preparation for Halloween. Since last week’s presidential debate, Big Bird has become the subject of numerous Internet memes, celebrating people’s love for “Sesame Street” and disapproval of Romney’s positions.

Know Your Meme lists “Fired Big Bird / Mitt Romney Hates Big Bird” as the grouping of material related to this trend. One picture of Big Bird features the text “This Bird is too Big to fail,” and others play on the Obama 2008 Hope campaign with a picture of Big Bird above the word “Save.”

PBS released a statement on the issue and their disliking of Romney using the network as a “political target.”

“We are very disappointed that PBS became a political target in the Presidential debate last night,” PBS said in the statement. “Governor Romney does not understand the value the American people place on public broadcasting and the outstanding return on investment the system delivers to our nation. We think it is important to set the record straight and let the facts speak for themselves.”